Armenia and Georgia Sign Declaration Establishing Strategic Partnership

TBILISI — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his Georgian counterpart Irakli Gharibashvili signed a joint declaration calling for “strategic partnership” between their countries as they held talks in Tbilisi on Friday.

The declaration was signed during Pashinyan’s working visit to Georgia.

“Today’s achievement is the outcome of our joint efforts and work over the past several years reflecting our commonality and our goals. This achievement once again emphasizes the need to multiply our efforts and not to limit ourselves to what we have achieved,” Pashinyan said following the meeting of the Armenian-Georgian commission on economic cooperation in Georgian capital Tbilisi.

“De facto, we were already strategic partners and friends,” Gharibashvili told at the  joint news briefing. “It can be said that this reality was formalized today.”

“This achievement is the result of several years of joint work and reflects our commonalities and intentions,” Pashinyan said for his part.

The Armenian premier listed more than a dozen areas where Armenia and Georgia will strive for closer ties. Defense and security was not among them.

The declaration was signed at the end of a session of a Georgian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation. Both Pashinyan and Gharibashvili spoke of growing commercial ties between the two neighboring states, saying their bilateral trade surpassed $1 billion last year.

Pashinyan said he also briefed Gharibashvili on Armenia’s peace talks with Azerbaijan. He said he hopes that the peace process will resume “on a full scale” after next month’s Azerbaijani presidential election.

“I want to express our hope that Armenia and Azerbaijan will sign a peace treaty soon,” Gharibashvili said in this regard.